The 1960s signalled the onset of the jet age and cities worldwide rushed to accommodate this new modernity. The jet age spawned the construction of the Tullamarine Airport in Melbourne: Australia’s first purpose-built jetport. Although now considered purely functional in the 21st century, in 1970, Tullamarine was the height of modernity and progress. Its design...

The rise of the ‘fast food’ concept as it is understood in the 21st century is the result of a series of calibrations enacted over decades by business, society and technology. The expansion of fast food franchising has paralleled social and environmental change, particularly since the middle of the 20th century. Its origins may be...

The Surfers Paradise Meter Maid wears a gold bikini to promote the region of Surfer’s Paradise on the east coast of Australia. The “celebrity” Meter Maid first appeared in 1964 and can be mapped to coincide with a range of conflations during that time where women were groomed to perceive beauty and women’s power and...

In 1991 Davison and McConville described the 'heritage business' as being "subject to constant tension between the demands for bureaucratic consistency and impersonal expertise on one hand and for popular participation and local autonomy on the other" (p. 11). The decisions and debate over the fate of Australian political icon Gough Whitlam's birthplace 'Ngara' more...

From the late 1920s to at least the mid-1940s, David Lomas Davidson (1893-1952) was the most powerful and influential administrator in town planning in Australia. As Town Planning Commissioner for Western Australia from 1929 until his death, his job was to implement the spirit and letter of the Town Planning and Development Act 1928. Davidson’s...